Squirrels & A Rental Car

It's time to pay ad valorem taxes on our van and truck (Yipee!). That means its emission testing time too. So last week I took my car to Jiffy Lube for it's annual check-up. The technician came into the waiting room and said, "Ms. Allen, there's something out here you need to see". That's never good coming from some one who's working on your car.

To everyone's amazement, there was a HUGE leaf nest under my hood. So huge, in fact, that it completely covered 1/2 of my engine! There were leaves, twigs, sticks, and everything an industrious little squirrel could find, all jammed in so tightly you couldn't stick a finger in there (If you were silly enough to want to do that!). Now I've seen plenty squirrel nests, right in my yard, in fact, but they've always been in TREES. What kind of squirrel builds an apartment complex under the hood of a car? A CRAZY one, I suppose. I guess all of the CRAZY squirrels have taken up residence in our yard.
All the technicians gathered around, gaping at my giant nest. "Wow, I've never seen anything like this before", and "Gee, does this car just sit for months or something?" were the comments from the peanut gallery. Finally, one of the guys got enough courage to poke at the heap with a stick and start to break it up. I think they were all a bit leary of what might come crawling out of there.

But, finally, with most of the debris gone, nothing crawled out. Seeming a bit more confident, the tech. started vacuuming up the remnants. Then he saw it - the wiring damage caused by these industrious little pests. The main wiring harness to my fuse box looked like an untamed mass of shredded wheat. It's amazing the car was still operable, and hadn't caught on fire.

This was a job for the pros. So my car went to Honda Carland today for repairs. I imagine it won't be cheap. But hey, it's been a great car and I don't have any car payments, so I'll just deal with it somehow. Enterprise brought me a Camry to drive until my van is repaired, so now its just a waiting game to see what the $$ damage is.

I'll be checking under my hood frequently from now on in case those little guys get any ideas about re-building thier masterpiece. Too bad I can't send the squirrels the bill.